LAHORE, Nov 10: A police inspector, notorious for staging fake encounters and links with underworld, and two others were gunned down on Raiwind Road in Sattukatla on Thursday.

Police sources said Inspector Naveed Saeed alias Needi Pehalwan and his men had allegedly killed more than 50 men in fake encounters, mainly during the last tenure of Shahbaz Sharif as chief minister, in the city and elsewhere in the Punjab.

Hanifa and Shafiq alias Baba known as Hanifa Baba, Hamayun Gujjar, Naji Butt, Sana Gujjar and Kali were prominent among those underworld men who were killed by him in staged encounters, they added.

The inspector had in his group two other inspectors, Karamat Bhatti and Malik Karamat, who had been staging shootouts under the command of SP Omar Cheema.

Backed by his department and politicians, he was so daring that he killed Hanifa and four other men in an encounter in 1998, although they had been snapped with him by press photographers outside the Lahore airport on their arrival from Dubai. It has been an open secret that the inspector would be more loyal to underworld lord Teefi Butt than to his department if given a choice, they maintained.

He remained suspended from service for around two years on various charges, chiefly for amassing money disproportionate to known sources of income and some bank loans. Some of the cases against him had been registered with the NAB, the sources said.

For some years, Inspector Naveed, with his British national wife and five children, had been living in the UK and had returned home some months ago. He had lately got into real estate business.

He was settling a property dispute in Sattukatla, SP Imran Arshad told Dawn by phone. “He was there in a private capacity.”

He and his business partner Abdul Waheed Butt wanted another estate agent, Nadeem alias Baba, to stop construction work on a plot. Baba, however, had refused to halt the construction, the police said.

At least three meetings for reconciliation were held between the two parties but to no avail. Inspector Naveed with his guards and Mr Butt reached the construction site and tried to use force to stop the work.

Sources said Naveed called the area police which rushed there and, on his demand, bundled the workers and the agent’s men in their vans and drove them to the police station.

However, the SP denied that Naveed used police for his personal affairs. He said the police went there after a message was radioed on emergency. “Nobody was picked up by the area police from the site.”

Naveed and Mr Butt got back from the site. They were discussing the issue outside the office of Mr Butt when Nadeem and his brother Babar reached there.

Police claimed that the brothers and their men sprayed them with bullets and escaped by a car.

Naveed, Butt (45) and guard Maqsood Ahmad alias Pathaney Khan (38) sustained injuries. Naveed died on the spot while the two succumbed to their wounds on way to hospital. Another guard, Naseer Khan, was admitted to the Jinnah Hospital in precarious condition.

The bodies were removed to the city mortuary for autopsy. No case has so far been registered, nor any arrest is made.

Naveed was recruited in the Punjab Constabulary as a wrestler on sports basis and later transferred to the police. He had been enjoying powers, at times, more than that of an SP, and had been a favourite of many of his bosses.